Black Voices in Policing—Texas Southern University's Center 

for Justice Research

Voiceover 

00:00 

Welcome to The Beat—a podcast series from the COPS Office at the Department of Justice. Featuring 

interviews with experts from a varied field of disciplines, The Beat provides law enforcement with the 

latest developments and trending topics in community policing. 

Gilbert Moore 

00:16 

Hello, and welcome to another episode of The Beat. I’m Gilbert Moore. Our guest today is Dr. Howard 

Henderson. Dr. Henderson is the Director of the Center for Justice Research at Texas Southern University 

in Houston. He also serves as the chair for the MacArthur Foundation–funded Houston Racial/Ethnic 

Disparities Committee Data Working Group. In addition, Dr. Howard is leading a research team in the 

large-scale evaluation of the Houston Police Department’s body-worn camera program. He is a former 

member of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s multi-disciplinary advisory board, and he has 

served as an instructor for the U.S. Department of State’s International Law Enforcement Academy. 

Dr. Henderson, welcome to The Beat. 

Dr. Howard Henderson 

01:00 

Good afternoon. Thanks for having me, and I’m looking forward to such a spirited conversation. 

Moore 

01:04 

We think it’s going to be an interesting conversation, but before we get started, just help me understand 

a little bit about Texas Southern University, the Center for Justice Research, and how Texas Southern 

came to be involved in the evaluation of criminal justice data. In other words, set the stage for us. 

Henderson 

01:21 

Texas Southern University is a unique university in the country because it is uniquely situated in an 

urban center. The beauty of the university is it has a history of dealing with urban issues. It has special 

urban designation from Texas legislators, a historically Black college located in Third Ward Houston. 

There are several research institutes on campus, and the university is known for solving problems that 

the world is facing in real time. The beauty of the institution is that they wholeheartedly support the 

work that faculty do, they are engaged in projects, and they make sure that we have the time that we 

need to address issues as they may occur. 
And so, it was pertinent that we began to engage in the national conversation about criminal justice 

reform because we understood that those individuals who are closest to the problem, oftentimes, are 

closest to the solution, and because of that we’ve been able to have a fair success in a short period of 

time. And so, we appreciate that. And, again, we thank you for the opportunity to have a conversation 

today and hopefully say something that helps push the conversation further in the right direction.

Moore

02:30

There seem to be a lot of things that are unique about Texas Southern, or the work of the Center for 

Justice Research, and one of them is an approach that appears somewhat uncommon during the current 

discourse about issues of police reform and re-imagining policing. And that uniqueness is that there’s a 

readiness to consider and incorporate an approach that’s supported by law enforcement, as well as 

those presented or supported by community. And that’s occurring rather than just looking at issues 

through a binary lens. Is that an accurate interpretation?

Henderson

03:03

No, I think it’s fairly accurate. I thank you for bringing it to everyone’s attention. We follow what we call 

a translational model. And in that model we don’t make any decisions without engaging members of the 

community—without discussing with community partners, decision-makers, policy-makers, and other 

researchers—because we understand, as an academic research institution, we need to cover as many 

different perspectives as we can about an issue before we engage in the research.

What we found is that a lot of academic entities conduct research as if they have the answer on the 

front end. We don’t assume that. We make sure that we talk to the folks who are on the ground dealing 

with the issues, and we engage all parties. We talk to police officers. We have a team of officers who 

advise us, who are at every level from chief down to line-level officer. We have community advocacy 

groups. We bring all of these folks to the table, because we understand that the solution cannot be 

arrived at unless you have all the perspectives there. And so, I think that’s what separates us from what 

everyone else is doing around the country.

Moore

04:14

I saw an interview you conducted following the death of George Floyd and what I thought was very 

interesting... Well, with all of the issues that resulted after the death of George Floyd, what I thought 

was interesting is that you indicated that you looked at proposals from Democratic elected officials, 

Republican elected officials and the former administration’s executive order on law enforcement, and 

you identify those areas that represent agreement, you run them past the community, and then you 

focus first on the low-hanging fruit, those things that represent universal agreement. What are some of 

those issues where everyone seems to be on the same page?
Henderson

04:54

Listen, chokeholds are an obvious place to start. That’s what made us put out the Chokehold Action Brief

first, because when we talked to folks—both liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats,

Independents, advocacy groups, police departments—they all said chokeholds was a good place to do it

because there aren’t many people around the country who would say we still need those to do our job.

They understand the historical legacy of slavery rooted in many police practices today. And we want to

be able to say, “Listen, let us identify the points where you all agree, and as academics that’s our job, to 

help solve a problem. Let’s go where we know we’re going to have the greatest level of agreement, and 

spend the rest of the time working on issues that would improve police accountability but are going to

be more contested.” 

Moore

05:44

So, you mentioned, kind of, the impact that the nation’s past has had on perceptions of policing by

communities of color, African-American communities in specific. What do you say to those officers who

are listening to these issues, or are looking at these issues, and, quite frankly, they had no part in, kind

of, how America arrived at the disconnect that we find ourselves in— 

Henderson

06:09

Right.

Moore

06:10

—who are out there trying to do the job? What would you say to them?

Henderson

06:13

First of all, I’d like to thank them for doing the work that we need done. And I also have to admit that we

need police in this country. There’s no way that we’re ever going to have a functioning society without

police. 

The challenge is that a lot of the disconnect between certain segments of the community and the police 

is based on the historical legacy, as rooted in local realities of oppression, of slavery, of racism, and 

though it had nothing to do with that individual officer who may have not been born during those 

periods of time, it affects the relationship. And we have to understand that in individual relationships in 

the community, if you don’t understand what’s motivating the behavior, then you can’t solve it. And 

sometimes you respond to it as if you know the rationale behind it. But until we are able to train officers

on the disconnect that exists in the community, then we’re going to continue to have these problems. 

And so, you essentially destroy the social contract, and the ramifications of that have been far-reaching. 

And we’ve seen those most recently around the country.
Moore

07:23

And so, what’s your interpretation of what that social contract is and how it plays out at the local level, 

day in and day out?

Henderson

07:32

Well, I mean, you think about the work of theorists such as Thomas Hobbes and John Locke and they 

talked about the social contract where the citizens consent to be governed by and submit to laws in 

society in return for the protections and benefits of an organized governmental structure. And so, the 

community says, “Okay, listen, we’re going to step back so that the state—the police department—can 

protect the will of the community.” And so, essentially, the police work for the community. There are 

some departments around the country, as we talked about before we got on the air, that don’t train 

their officers in that theoretical perspective, and so that’s where you see the disconnect. Ultimately, the 

police work for the community and the community has the ultimate say-so in the way in which they 

want to be policed. And I think that’s what we’re experiencing now, is a paradigm shift in American 

policing because that social contract, in some cases, has been violated.

Moore

08:40

How does that happen, right? So, we’ve had a previous conversation and you’ve mentioned the current 

commission report on 21st century policing and a number of other indicators that have been done over 

various periods of time, or let’s say a broad period of time, and all fundamentally are getting at the same 

points. That being said, like, why are we as a society having trouble taking the recommendations of all 

this work that has been done on these issues?

Henderson

09:13

Well, let’s just think about the history of policing and our understanding of policing as individuals. Most 

of us are raised to believe that the police are infallible, that they’re perfect, they do no wrong. And so, 

it’s very difficult for people who don’t live in these communities, or they don’t see community policing, 

to experience it the way that they claim they’re experiencing. And we’ve seen some videos in that 

regard. The challenge is we find it very difficult to be empathetic when we have not experienced that 

style of policing.

And so, what has happened is with the videos, with George Floyd, with the Breonna Taylor case, we’ve 

been able to see some fundamental problems in policing that have always existed. You see, now, for the 

first time in the history of this country, a bipartisan push to change policing and move it in the right 

direction. The country now says that they understand that something needs to be done about policing, 

that we need to be able to hold policing more accountable. Policing is responding and saying, “We agree 

with you, but we need resources to make sure that we’re able to focus in those spaces.” We are now 

having the conversation that you should have in policing in a democracy where all parties are engaged. 
Before this point in history there’s only been one side having a conversation. That was at the policing 

side saying, “This is the way we’re going to police you all.” Fortunately, now, we have society saying, 

“No, that’s not the way you’re going to police. This is the way we want you to police.” And I think we’re 

going to end up in the right spot, and much better than we were 10, 20 years ago.

Moore

10:57

Does your research suggest that the law enforcement community, writ large, is accepting of that 

position, or ready for that kind of change?

Henderson

11:06

I think, for the most part, we’ve found through our numerous conversations with officers—interviews 

and whatnot—they accept that there are some change that needs to happen, the challenge is in 

understanding the degree to which that change needs to occur.

For example, they agree the chokeholds need to go, they understand that, but the notion of qualified 

immunity is a sticky point. They seem to feel as if qualified immunity provides them protections to do 

their job. Community and society are saying otherwise. And so, that’s going to be a very sticky point 

that’s probably going to have to work its way through our Supreme Court system before we even see 

any changes, if at all.

Moore

11:45

Well, I know that you or the Center has had a project that takes a look at that, the project on qualified 

immunity, and what I found interesting about it is it’s not just looking at qualified immunity in how it 

protects officers, other governmental officials, from frivolous lawsuits, but looking at how qualified 

immunity in cases where I guess you could say there’s a general agreement of wrongdoing— 

Henderson

12:12

Correct. So— 

Moore

12:14

—reduces the amount of trust and confidence in law enforcement.

Henderson

12:18

So the qualified-immunity piece is tricky because it applies to many governmental actors, and the 

challenge is that officers are telling us that without qualified immunity they’re set up for failure because 

they can’t do their job, and talking to advocacy groups, community members that say, “Listen, we don’t 

need qualified immunity.” 
The position that we take is there’s got to be some compromise there. Can we identify situations in 

which qualified immunity would be appropriate? Can we earmark those instances in which qualified 

immunity would not be? I think we have to go there first, because to take one extreme over the other is 

to show that there is no need on one hand, and that there’s absolute need on the other, but I think that 

any reasonable officer and any reasonable citizen could agree that there are some instances in which 

qualified immunity should not protect an individual who has engaged in otherwise criminal conduct. And 

I think that any reasonable officer and any reasonable citizen would agree that there are situations in 

which qualified immunity should be applicable. And so, I think that we need to be able to sit down at the 

table and have a constructive conversation about what’s necessary.

Moore

13:39

And so, a lot of our listeners are practicing law enforcement officers—patrol-level officers, first-line 

supervisors, command-level officers, police chiefs and sheriffs, and the like. And I would imagine that 

some of them would hear that conversation and one of the first things they would think is, “Hold on, 

now I’m going to be subject to judgment driven by politics. I’m going to be subject to judgment driven 

by a community that may not understand the rigors of the job, the challenges that are faced on the 

street, and the instant nature of the decision-making process and, quite frankly, may not be able to 

contextually understand how some of the things that an officer confronts on the street do in fact 

influence their response.” What would you say to that perspective, or point of view?

Henderson

14:29

I think that there has to be an education campaign for officers, just like they’d need an education 

campaign for the general society on the instance in which qualified immunity is necessary. There are... I 

would estimate that most police officers do their job the way it’s supposed to be done, day in and day 

out. There’s a small proportion of those officers who are engaged in behaviors that would challenge the

assumptions of qualified immunity, or the need of qualified immunity. But I understand the concern.

The challenge being, though, ultimately, the police have to understand that the community is in charge 

of dictating how they want to be policed. And I know it’s fundamentally different from what many 

officers are trained or taught, but unless the community is supportive of police activity, we end up in 

these places every time there is a high-profile case. And legitimacy or illegitimacy challenges the ability 

of a community to believe in a system that it’s supposed to support in order for it to work.

Moore

15:36

Addressing issues of qualified immunity, I think everybody will agree, is a heavy lift. What are some of 

the other issues that the Center has found of importance, but maybe where there’s not agreement 

across the board, issues that still need to be dealt with, and we still need to make progress on?
Henderson

15:52

I think the bigger elephant in the room is dealing with police unions, understanding that they began as 

benevolent organizations that were designed to protect the employment interest and the pay of 

officers, and now they have become entities that also protect officers who are engaged in this conduct, 

in some cases.

I think the other elephant in the room is this whole notion of defunding the police. We understand that 

that is a highly controversial statement, and many don’t understand why you would even want to 

defund the police. I think we need to have a national conversation about what that means, if there’s any 

movement, or any room for negotiation there.

I think those two issues, looking at defunding the police and looking at what it means to reformulate 

what police unions do, and their functioning role, those two are going to be more controversial, if not 

much greater than the whole notion of qualified immunity.

Moore

16:52

So given the controversies surrounding the issues of defunding, re-imagining policing, I’ve heard it all. I 

mean, I’ve heard people say, “Hey, look, most cops will tell you that mental health issues are 

overwhelming for them. Domestic issues or calls for service can be overwhelming and very dangerous.” 

But at the same time, they might not be supportive of approaches that engage other professionals, or 

even if they are supportive, they’re not seeing that in the language that is currently being used around 

police funding. What does it mean? Because I’ve talked to many people and the perspectives are all over 

the board on it.

Henderson

17:29

So you made a couple points and I want to address those first before I define how I see qualified 

immunity. Since 2013, almost a quarter of all the people killed by police had some known mental illness. 

And police are put in a very difficult position. We understand that. Many police departments have yet to 

train their officers on how to deal with mental health, as well as substance abuse crisis and calls. When 

you look at defunding the police you have different factions within that realm.

On one hand, there are some people in the defund the police conversation who totally want to get rid of 

police as we know them today, and they want to create a new entity that is focused on public health. 

You have another faction that says that there is no way that we could ever defund the police, in fact, 

police need more funding. I think, and those researchers in our circle and in a part of our group, we 

believe that the answer is somewhere in the middle. We understand that the defund the police 

conversation at least captured people’s attention. But we also know that defund the police, getting rid 

of them, is not practical.
So what does that mean? That means that an opportunity has now come to the forefront where police 

chiefs can now justify their needs. They can use this opportunity to educate the public about what they 

need. And the public now has an opportunity to voice their concerns about how they’re policed, and 

what resources should be allocated to the policing of the 21st century. We look at this whole notion of 

defunding as a great opportunity to talk about what policing looks like in the 21st century, and we hope 

that it doesn’t go away because we disagree with the terminology as opposed to focusing on the 

definitions, and the differences, and the commonalities that exist in the conversation.

Moore

19:26

So, that leads me to how your work has been received by the law enforcement field.

Henderson

19:33

Yeah. So, you know, we—as I said earlier when we talked about our research approach, and being 

translational, and making sure that we have officers at the table—we don’t make any moves, or go 

public with any information, unless we have parties review the information who we think are experts in 

that space. So police overwhelmingly have supported the work that we’re doing, but they also help us 

understand how what we’re doing is seen from that lens. And so, we understand, oftentimes more than 

the general public understands, that just like the public wants the police to adhere to and to pay 

attention to what they’re saying, we feel that the community also has to participate in some of that 

listening as well. Because I think that both sides provide expertise on that experience of being in that 

position.

When they talk, here are a couple things that we’ve noticed. Number one is that violent crime is a 

concern of both parties. Number two, resource allocation is a concern of both parties. The challenge is 

police departments don’t have a built-in mechanism for communication. And what I mean by that is, 

other than filing complaints on an officer, what are the official mechanism that a community member 

can actually voice their concerns to a police chief without bombarding them with more work? And so, 

we’re pushing for better lines of communication, but also more engagement between the two entities. 

Because in order for policing to be effective—and officers tell us this—they need community 

engagement. And so, when you talk to your more seasoned officer, they understand that. When you talk 

to your more seasoned community member, they understand that. What we’re allowing to happen is 

we’re allowing the news to dictate the relationship locally when that may not, in fact, be the case.

Moore

21:41

It’s interesting that you would mention this right on the heels of the conversation about the level of 

resources available to law enforcement. So would this be an opportunity for a conversation about, 

maybe, there needing to be an increase in funding to support more training, to support more 
comprehensive recruitment efforts, to make sure that a department is attracting the right people to the 

job? There are a lot of things that fall in to the category of potential improvements that require more 

funds rather than less.

Henderson

22:15

Well, I think that the conversation for more funding should not be had until police departments can 

justify the proper use of the existing funding. And what I mean by that is you now have a community 

that’s saying, “We want change.” And that community is not in a position to respect any conversations 

of more funding until the existing funding levels are justified. So I think that it’s going to take some time, 

but we’re not in a climate where increased police funding is going to be received well by a huge swath of 

the community. But it doesn’t mean that we won’t get there. It just means that the police have to justify 

their needs because, basically, the community is saying, “We want to know what you’re using the 

money for, and if resources can be reallocated.” 

I think the more appropriate term for all of this would be “reallocation of resources,” because I think 

there are some funds in some places that would be better used in others, and I think having the 

conversation between police chiefs, city councils, community members on a consistent, continual basis, 

would be beneficial to everyone. Unfortunately, that conversation and relationship has become so 

adversarial, as if we’re on trial, when they’re communicating, and that shouldn’t be the case.

Moore

23:41

So in so many departments, officers spend their entire shift running from one call for service to another, 

and the concept of taking away funding really is a non-starter. In part because, hey, these calls are 

coming from the community. These calls are coming from communities of color, African-American 

communities, and the level of response that can be provided by law enforcement agencies is already 

strained. So when you start thinking about, or having conversations about, “Well, let’s stand up some of 

these mental health or social service providers to support the police,” do you think that communities 

are ready? So even if it’s not a conversation that’s about increasing funding for law enforcement, if 

we’re talking about maybe addressing the mental health issue and you have service providers respond 

to calls with, or in lieu of, law enforcement, all of this represents an increase in funding at the local level. 

Are communities ready for that?

Henderson

24:37

I think that communities can be there. Let me give you an example. We work with our main funder, 

Thurgood Marshall College Fund, and Gallop on a national poll of individuals who live in these 

disenfranchised, historically discriminated–against communities and 51 percent of those residents said 

that they want police to spend more time in their community. Blacks were 52 percent wanted more 

police in their community, and Spanish 59 percent. Whites were 46 percent. So what that tells us is that, 

contrary to the media’s narrative, people who live in these disenfranchised communities want more 
policing. The question is what that policing looks like. And I think the question that you raise about 

increasing funding on a local level, the caveat there is can you do that without eradicating the system of 

over-representation in terms of arrests, in terms of incarceration, in terms of conviction?

The community wants to make sure that if you’re receiving more funding, that doesn’t mean that we’re 

going to see more discriminatory stops, that we want to be more likely to be arrested, convicted, 

charged, and sentenced to prison, and that’s a kind of a piece because the police, in essence, are 

becoming representatives of portions of the criminal justice system that they aren’t necessarily engaged 

in. But we do know, the research has been very clear about, that members of these communities want 

to see more police spend more time in those communities. What that looks like is debatable.

Moore

26:18

Yeah, and so, given that dynamic, right, and I do understand what you said about the media influencing 

public perceptions on all of the issues, but given that dynamic, if we know that so many of these calls for 

services are coming from communities, White, Black, and otherwise—how do we align that with a 

conversation about police funding levels being decreased?

Henderson

26:39

As I was saying earlier, I think that we need a national campaign to educate everyone about the needs of 

a police department. It would help us if we understood how many police were necessary to deal with 

certain segments of society.

A lot of policing is impacted by the lack of social services and support in a community. If someone has a 

mental health crisis, that oftentimes ends up in the hands of police. If someone has a domestic violence 

issue, that oftentimes lends itself into the hands of the police. A lot of these issues are really outside, or 

should be outside, the purview of a police department. But because the city or county has not properly 

funded the necessary infrastructure, then the police have been charged with dealing with that.

And so, I think that the police are also going to have to let the power brokers know that 40 percent of 

their phone calls are for issues that are outside of the necessary purview of the department. And so, we 

need to be able to restructure that. Until we educate people about what the day-to-day job looks like of 

an officer, then we’re going to miss the opportunity to get services and support that we may need. And 

that’s why I think that a conversation about reallocation of services is the most fruitful.

Moore

27:58

So with all of these sometimes competing priorities and competing realities, where do we start? I mean, 

how... So much of this stuff is handled at a local level. I can foresee a situation where you’re driving 

between jurisdictions and the level or the type of police service you get is vastly different, depending 
upon what side of a given street you cross, or what side of a given street you’re on. Given all of that, 

given the public discourse right now, the aftermath, everything we’ve seen following the death of 

George Floyd—what are the Center’s thoughts about where we go from here?

Henderson

28:34

I think—in talking to various groups around the country, advising various state-level committees, locallevel committees—the first thing that we have to do is we have to bring to the table all of the parties 

who have a vested interest in seeing positive solutions to the problem. We’re going to have to spend 

some time with what we call affinity groups, and that is figuring out where these issues are and how 

close we are to solutions. So they’re going to have to work together. There’s just no way around that.

We have to get rid of this adversarial relationship between the police and the community because we 

can’t do anything with that approach. Once we do that, we are able to strategically identify the areas 

that need attention, and we have the evidence to help us move in the right direction appropriately, at 

the deliberate speed that we need to be able to move forward in. Once we do that, then we have

structural issues at play that we need to be able to focus on. And that is identifying where police 

attention really needs to be. If you look at a police chief around the country, they know where their hot 

spots are. Give police departments the opportunity to focus on those hot spots, and you delegate those 

other areas that are not hot spots to other entities in the city that are best situated to deal with that. 

We’ve got to allow the police department to focus on what they need to be doing because we’ve 

expanded the scope of work, but at the same time we don’t want to expand funding and so those are 

contradictory. I think if we do that, we’ll be in a better position to be more effective and, ultimately, 

improve the relationship between the police and the community.

Moore

30:14

So in your work, as you suggested, you bring people from various sectors to the table—law 

enforcement, community, presumably elected officials. What would you say to them about how to 

move forward so that these conversations can take place in a collaborative and productive manner?

Henderson

30:31

Well, I think one is you need to be able to say that, ultimately, we want to change police culture. That in 

order to address that there are some systematic changes that need to take place. You’re going to have 

to get rid of this mentality as if the police has all the answers. You’re going to have to be able to 

understand that in a democracy everyone has a vested interest in making sure that that relationship 

works. And it’s going to take time. And so, the police are going to have to understand that they don’t 

have the answer to everything. And I think doing that, they’re better situated to find the solution 

because the community, if for nothing else, they understand their perception, and I think that’s where 

we need to be looking at. It’s finding out what perceptions and experiences do individuals have with a 

police department so that we can improve.
Moore

31:27

The Center has looked at a lot of different issues surrounding law enforcement in urban and minority 

communities, issues such as the root causes behind gun violence, gun usage among African-American 

males in urban communities, and so forth. What would you say are some of the other things that the 

Center is focused on, in terms of recommendations for moving forward? I just want to make sure that 

we bring that out.

I’ve heard you say things in the past such as we need to look at bringing officers into the profession who 

are college educated. There are a number of other things that the Center has suggested would be 

helpful. What are those facts that you would want our listeners to understand about what you guys are 

supporting and promoting?

Henderson

32:08 

Yeah, I think one is we need to, you mentioned, we need to start a serious conversation about the role 

of college education and policing in this country. We understand the challenges of doing that. You have 

some departments that don’t have the resources to hire or recruit officers with college degrees, and we 

have some departments that can. If we started in those places that could do that, we should do it. You 

have small departments that don’t have the resources. They don’t have the access to available 

applicants who would have degrees. We understand that. But you would think in 2020 we would 

understand the need to move forward, and to move policing on the local level to a level of 

professionalism that the federal government has seen for a number of years. And I think that, 

ultimately, with the support of the research that shows that officers with college degrees are 40 percent 

less likely to be engaged in use of force cases, they’re more likely to adopt community policing 

principles, I think we’d be in a better place in the long run. That’s what we understand. The data tells us 

that.

I also think that there’s a need for a fundamental overhaul of our system. The mentality, the paradigm, 

the structure, the theory of American policing is evolving. And because of this evolution, there are some 

mechanisms within an organization that have to change, fundamentally. Those deal with police 

accountability, and also transparency.

Moore

33:38

Anything else that has jumped off the page, based on your research, that is different or a new 

perspective on issues?

Henderson

33:45

Yeah, I think we’re going to have to get back to building better leadership. I think that, because of the 

work that officers are doing now, they’ve gotten away from leadership development programs in 

policing. We need to get back there. I think that we need to nationalize a set of prescribed standards for 
policing and its administration, because you have departments doing what they want to do and are able 

to afford. I think we need to have a national conversation about how we can standardize policing 

standards, and how we move forward in that space.

Moore

34:19

What about on the other side of the coin when it comes to issues of community responsibility? And I 

don’t mean responsibility not to be victimized, but I’m talking about supporting the police. The kind of 

input that would allow change to occur in a way that works for everybody. What guidance would you 

give to those corners of the community that are really trying to become involved in driving a different 

tomorrow relative to policing? 

Henderson

34:46

I think the community, you know, they’re going to have to do more, if not as much, work as the police 

are in improving this. They’re going to have to organize. They’re going to have to understand that you’re 

not able to change an organization overnight. They’re going to have to understand that the police see 

issues that they may not be privy to, as members of the community.

But I think that through organization, through mutual respect, through mutual accountability, they’re 

going to have to start reporting some of these issues that is in the community they don’t report. We 

have a tendency not to want to report certain crimes in certain communities. We’re going to have to 

move in the right direction and begin to have more productive, positive conversation, because in order 

for the police to do their job they need the community to be there to assist, and in order for the 

community to feel like they’re able to assist, they need the police to help them, and be fair and just. And 

so, it’s a relationship, right? And so, we’re invested in this relationship, and it’s going to take some work. 

But it’s also going to take conversation and communication between the two parties that we, 

historically, have not seen in this country.

Moore

35:53 

We have been speaking with Dr. Howard Henderson, who is the Director for the Center of Justice 

Research at Texas Southern University in Houston.

Dr. Henderson, we appreciate you being with us, and before we close I just want to ask you one simple 

question, and that is: How can people learn more about the work of the Center of Justice Research at 

Texas Southern University?

Henderson

36:17 

Thanks again for the opportunity. It’s been great. If they go to our website, 

www.centerforjusticeresearch.org. They can also visit us on all social media platforms @CJResearchTSU. 

We’re on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube. We have all of the outlets. We try to 
disseminate information about work that we have going on. We try to provide resources for the

improvement of the overall criminal justice system, pieces for people to think about, pontificate, but 

overall, improve the communication between the police and the community, but ultimately, moving

criminal justice into the 21st century.

Moore

37:01 

Dr. Henderson, it has been a true honor to speak with you today, and we are grateful for your efforts

and the work of the Center. Thank you so much for joining us on The Beat.

Henderson

37:10 

Thank you so much for having me.

Voiceover: The Beat Exit

37:11

The Beat is brought to you by the United States Department of Justice COPS Office. The COPS Office

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Voiceover: Disclaimer

38:09

The opinions contained herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official 

position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. References to specific agencies, companies, 

products or services should not be considered an endorsement by the authors or the U.S. Department of

Justice, rather the references are illustrations to supplement discussion of the issues.